Well, I decided to make a new batch of sauce and cook the sausages in it. I dropped the raw sausages in and cooked the sauce for 5 hours. The texture and flavor was exactly what I was looking for - fantastic. But... I don't think they were quite done. I poked one with my thermapen and it was 155 degrees. Then I cut it in half and it looked a little pink to me. I had to nuke them for a bit to feel safe about it.

I served the baked ziti with a bowl of extra sauce and the sausages on the side and it was great.

I had my stove (electric) on low for the 5 hours... was that my mistake? I really would like to perfect this, it's one of my favorite meals.

Thanks
Jay

IF you're slow cooking sauce, it needs to be hot enough to maintain safe temperatures. You should be adjusting the heat so simmering occurs. Not as hot as boiling, with furious bubble activity but a slow steady bubbling activity. This will ensure cooking continues.

At 155 F intermal temperature, the sausage was safe to eat. The pinkness is probably due to nitrites in the sausage.

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"If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe." -Carl Sagan

My husband likes his Italian sausage "blown out" (his words). That is to say, he likes me to cut it in 1 or so inch sections (with what I buy locally I cut it into quarters, maybe 6ths), then fry at a relatively high heat (I'll usually throw in an onion or two and maybe a pepper). The blown out refers to the fact that the meat kind of starts to stick out of the casing. THEN I toss in some tomato sauce. I make my own, but if you have a prepared one you like, go for it. Toss it over your favorite pasta, and added to a light salad, you have a meal for a king (Oh, dear, I forgot to mention some good parm, asiago, or romano grated over the entire meal).

I'm not an expert at traditional Italian "gravies", but somehow your method doesn't sound safe to me. Five hours on low? That's just "warm" on my stove - not meant for actual cooking. And in all the traditional slow-cooked meat Italian sauce recipes I've come across, they're never dumping completely raw meat into the sauce - it's always been at least browned/seared or otherwise partially cooked first.

I'd also be a bit leery of the 155 temp. But then I always cook with poultry sausages, & consider an internal temp of 170 to be the bare minimum.

I've found out recently just how different electric ranges can be. My Frigidaire glasstop died, and we replaced it with a Samsung, also a ceramic glasstop. The old one was slower to heat up, but it was easier to simmer with. The new range is faster, has some nice features, but I have to turn the heat a lot lower to get a good simmer going. The Frigidaire had a simmer setting just above the low mark, and it worked great. The Samsung does not have a simmer setting, and the low mark is actually still a bit too high for a good simmer... I have to turn the dial below low to avoid burning any tomato based sauce.